But two days before St. Hilary there came word in the evening to Sudrheim that a levy of over two thousand men, from Lier and Ringerike, was marching on Oslo. The state of affairs in the town was that Duke Eirik had been dangerously ill during the holy-days, but now he was better and, for joy of that, his friends would keep the last day of Yule with wassailing. The men of Lier had had news of this, and they thought to fall upon the town that night.
Ivar Jonsson and his friends held a council at once, and next morning they set out with a body of over three hundred men, but the rest of the Raumrikings, who dwelt farther to the north and west, were to follow as quickly as they could: Ivar was afraid the men of Lier might forestall him and reap all the glory.
The men from Folden now mustered about fifty, and Olav Audunsson was their leader. It was he who had raised the yeomen for the first attack on the Swedes, and it was he who had sent warning betimes to the captain of Akershus. He himself had thought nothing of this till now, nor had he been among the leaders in the fight on the Oslo road; but here at Sudrheim he won credit for it, and it seemed to come about of itself that he was held to be the man of greatest mark among his company, the master of the ancient chieftains’ seat of Hestviken and Alf Erlingsson’s liegeman in days gone by. And here he himself thought it natural—as it should be, beyond that it concerned him no more. The other three subordinate chiefs were much younger men, nearer in age to Ivar Jonsson.
As it was falling dark they reached the village of Tveit, below the Gellir ridge, and here they learned that the Duke had set guards at Hofvin Spital, at Sinsen, and at Aker by the church, but only a few men at each place, for it happened luckily that all these houses on the highroads belonged to Nonneseter, and the Abbess, Lady Groa Guttormsdatter, had protested with heavy threats against any injury being done to her dependants—nor would the Duke care to break peace with the masculine nun more than there was need. Everywhere in the ravaged districts the sisters’ tenants had been let off more lightly than other farmers, whether owners or tenants; those who held their land of the Crown or of the nobles had fared worst. Sira Hallbjörn laughed when he heard it: there was no love lost between him and the Lady Abbess, for he had disputes of his own with her, but he too saw the humour of this. The priest accompanied Ivar in arms and armour.
After consultation with some of those who lived in the neighbourhood it was decided that the Raumrikings should move up into the forest before daybreak and conceal themselves there till the next evening. Then they would advance along the river Alna, surprise the guards at Hofvin on the way, and fall upon the town above Martestokker, at the same time as the men of Lier entered it from the west by way of the convent of nuns. The latter body would have to pass round by Aker church and over Frysja bridge, as the ice on the Bjaarvik was unsafe, and the lower reach of the Frysja was not yet frozen over.3 Up here on the high ground it had frozen a little, and there was enough snow to enable the messengers sent westward by Ivar Jonsson to use their skis, if they kept to the roads and fields.
They settled themselves in the farms of Tveit, Ivar and his captains, intending to rest there till near daylight. But shortly before midnight the door of the house was suddenly flung open, and in came one of the farmers with whom they had spoken earlier in the evening, accompanied by an old woman, his mother.
She lived in the town with her married daughter, and they kept an alehouse in a yard near the palace. The Duke’s men had had word that a strong body of country levies was marching on Oslo from the west, and therefore they were making ready to attempt a storming of Akershus castle in the morning. The woman had watched her chance of slipping out of the town and bringing the message; for in Oslo it was whispered among the townsmen that the lords of Sudrheim were also engaged in raising men from the Upplands, but the Swedes believed nothing of this.
“There’ll be another dance then, for the last day of Yule,” said Sira Hallbjörn.
Now it was hard to know what course the Raumrikings should follow. Then Sira Hallbjörn demanded a hearing and said there were no more than two counsels to choose between: “—and neither is of the best. One is, that we set off at once and go west, the same way that our messengers went; cross the river by Sandakrar, fall on the guards at Aker farm, and then we must hold Frysja bridge tomorrow until the Lidungs 4 come up—if we can. Should the Duke have the luck to take Akershus, he can prepare a bloody bath for the yeomen’s army coming from the west and buy his peace with King Haakon at whatever price he himself may offer—he and his Norse friends.—The other counsel is that we turn home again, up to Raumarike, and wash down our shame with the last of the Yule barrels at Sudrheim.”
Young Ivar and his captains discussed the priest’s counsel. It would be fighting on unequal terms, three hundred men, and of those not more than seven and forty mounted and armed after the manner of horsemen, the rest yeomen on foot, against the Duke’s mercenaries and well-trained men-at-arms.
“What say you, Olav Audunsson?” asked Ivar. “You are the oldest and most experienced.”
“I say the priest is right. There are but two courses open. Neither is good—but the first plan seems to me not so bad after all. If we cannot hold the bridge, we can break it down and take refuge in Akershus.”
Sira Hallbjörn reminded them that it was of great moment to prevent the Duke’s getting possession of the castle. They must make ready to break down the bridge, as Olav said, and they had the church of Aker and the churchyard in their rear; that was a good position to defend if the enemy got part of his men across; and if they were driven back from the churchyard, they would have to take refuge in the church—that they could hold till the army from the west came up.
“Do you yourself believe what you said?” asked Olav as he and the priest were arming—“that the Lidungs can cut their way through to the church if the mounted troops reach the heights west of the Frysja?”
Sira Hallbjörn shook his head. “But we cannot return home without having ventured a brush. And it may cost the country dear, if Duke Eirik is to hold Akershus and treat for peace with his father-in-law that was to be—”
“Nay, that is so. Methinks this business has been somewhat brainlessly undertaken. But Ivar is young; ’tis worse to be heartless than brainless, and the heart is good enough both in him and in the men—no lack of fighting spirit.”
“No.—Do you remember last summer at the wedding—when your axe sang? Now we shall soon see whether the warning was for you or for me.”
“I have never heard that such weapons rang save for their own kin. But as things are shaping here, it looks most likely that it may mean both of us,” said Olav with a little laugh; and Sira Hallbjörn laughed too—“Ay, it looks so indeed.”
There was no moon, and the sky was strewn with stars. The snow was not deep enough to hinder the advance seriously; and now it was freezing a little. Olav Audunsson and Sira Hallbjörn rode at the head of the Folden troop—it was the last in the line. Olav and the priest had borrowed horses from Sudrheim, but Olav said he would fight on foot, for he was more used to that.
“If this frost hold a few days,” said the priest, “the Duke will be able to bring mail-clad horsemen across Bjaarvik.”
“Ay, we are late in moving,” said Olav; “and lucky if we be not too late.”
“At Sudrheim they would stay for the christening ale—and be sure these men from the west have had weddings and funerals and Yule barrels that must be emptied. But maybe we can yet drive back the Duke—as a repentant sinner drives off the Devil at his last gasp.”
Olav said nothing. He looked before him, where the host of constellations descended to the dark line of the wooded ridge. It was strange to think he should have suffered so much all these years on account of one dead man, have pondered so sadly upon death and all that came after—but when it came to war and fighting, all such thoughts flew away and were as nothing. And so, no doubt, it is always and for every man.
Their guide could not find the ford over the river where the adva
nced guard had crossed; they had to go right up to a kind of pool, where boats lay. This delayed the Folden troop so much that it was already growing light as they came down again by a path that ran through the alder brakes on the right bank. The sky stretched above them wide and light, yellow as sulphur down toward the eastern hills, as they sighted the tower of Aker church above the trees, and below them, on the farther side of the Frysja, they saw the roofs of Fors, white with snow against the white ground. At the head of the fiord a mist lay over Akershus and the town, spread out in a thin sheet, above which rose the towers of Hallvard’s Church and the gables of the old royal castle.
It looked more hopeful at the bridge than Olav had imagined—he had not passed this way since the King had built wooden towers at the bridgeheads. They were bigger than he had thought. The eastern one, on the Oslo side, was so much lower that the men on the western tower could shoot over it at an army advancing against Akersnes from the east.
Nor had Ivar been idle: his men were engaged in hoisting up stones and missiles into the barbicans, and in the middle of the bridge, where it rose highest, they were building a breastwork—some men were pulling down a few small cottages near the bridge, dragging out the logs and doors, while others loaded sledges with stones on the hillside and others again drove them down. So the men of Folden found work to do at once. From the Raumrikings they learned that the guards at Aker farm had been overpowered and cut down or made prisoner. Sira Hallbjörn at once secured two of the crossbows that Ivar had taken from the Swedes, for himself and Olav Audunsson—they both shot just as well with these weapons as with the longbow.
The day was already so far advanced that the Norwegians were saying that either the widow at Tveit had been doting, or the Swedes had given up the attack on the castle. The south-western sky was already afire above the forest on the Eikaberg ridge—the sun was just rising—when they heard the muffled beat of kettledrums just below at the brow of the wood under Fors. Their own work had been so noisy, and the falling water roared so under the bridge, that they had not heard the sound of advancing troops before. Now the rumble of many hoofs and the clanging of mail-clad men and horses rose and rolled toward them together with the undertone of drums.
The yeomen had been seen. A storming-ladder swung up above the bushes and shot down again: they were trying whether it worked in the grooves.
Olav flung his shield onto his back and dashed across the bridge with fourteen others, climbing over the obstacle in the middle. He had offered to take his stand in the foremost tower and had picked his party of young, strong lads who had a brisk look, to his thinking.
A boy came with them, bearing a banner—Olav knew his face from the streets of Oslo, but knew not who he was or how he had come here—and Olav answered, laughing: ay, let them set it up. It was a yellow banner with an image of Saint Olav on it—they had taken it out of the church; no doubt it belonged to a guild in Oslo.
The sun’s disk shone in splendour over the top of the ridge as he stood on the flat roof of the barbican and saw and heard the enemy breaking out of the brushwood beyond the fields. The long mail-clad ranks advancing with a faint jingling and a subdued glitter in the cold shadows upon the white ground, the bright patches of the banners, the scaling-ladders and battering-rams that they carried—and now a horn rang out, and short cries were heard—Olav felt his heart beat fast: it was a hostile troop, but no matter, his joy at the sight ran down him like a deep draught of cold, strong ale.
He cried the watchword, at the same moment raising his shield aslant without thinking—old habits revived of themselves in every joint of his body. Simultaneously with the whirring of the two small catapults he had on his tower came the first shower of arrows and bolts from the western tower over their heads.
The men on the eastern barbican crouched down with their shields oyer their heads and looked out through the loopholes. Some horses had fallen, breaking the ranks and causing confusion.
“Have they only four ladders?” cried Olav to his neighbour, the boy from Oslo.
“They lost some under Akersnes.”
A volley from the hostile army came flying, striking the wall of the barbican, rattling on the bridge behind them, but only a few shots fell on the roof, and none took effect. With exultant jeers the Norwegians picked them up. Now the ground thundered with heavily armoured horses. A troop of them were trotting toward the gate; they bore an iron-shod pole among them.
“What kind of playthings are these they use—do they think to take Akershus with the like of that?”
“You know they cannot bring their great battering-rams by this road,” the Oslo boy roared back, “across the hill. They have reckoned on the frost—”
“Then they have been almost as bull-headed as our Ivar.”
They shot the Swedes’ own bolts back at the troop—they fell harmless on their defensive armour—set their shoulders to the pole, and raised the cauldron of boiling water up to the top of the parapet. As the first blow of the ram crashed against the gate, making the whole tower shake, the Norwegians emptied the cauldron upon the men below.
The shrieks of scalded men and horses, the thud of hoofs, and the jingling of armour were drowned almost at once in the din of a fresh troop that came up and thrust aside the sprawling mass of the first. “Go slow,” shouted Olav to his men; “reserve your stones—” They had not too many of them and had to try to shoot straight down so as to prevent the attackers as long as possible from taking up the ram their comrades had dropped when the water came down on them. Meanwhile bolts and arrows from the archers in front rained down on their shields, and from the rear the shots of the Raumrikings in the western tower flew over their heads.
Olav saw one horseman who had been pressed too far out to the right—his horse slipped under him. Brought down on its haunches, it slid down the riverbank. Its shrill neighing rose above the din and the roar of the waterfall as it was carried into the dark, rushing water, with its rider hanging in the stirrup. The steep bank was covered with ice underneath the snow on both sides of the foot of the tower, and this was of great assistance to the Norwegians: the enemy could not send so many men at a time against the gate, and so far they had not succeeded in bringing up ladders. But it could not be long delayed.
A shout reached him from the bridge—eight or nine men were lifting baskets of stones over the breastwork and dragging them along. It had occurred to Ivar Jonsson that missiles might soon run short in the foremost barbican—thoughtless the young man was not. Olav’s heart laughed with joy within him. Ivar had withdrawn his men from the breastwork and stood waiting with them in the western barbican, and this was right: it could not be very long before the Swedes broke down the eastern gate and reached the bridge. Ivar had had the parapet of the bridge thrown down at each end of the obstacle.
They had just had time to hoist up the baskets of stones when the first scaling-ladder fell against the parapet. So now it was the turn of the axes. It was a good thing he had brought up the basket-bearers, thought Olav, otherwise he would have been short of men for this work. Man after man they hurled down as they swarmed up the ladders. One or two of his own lay low, and the boards of the floor were bloody—but so was the snow at the foot of the tower—what snow there was left.
They could not hold the tower for long. Olav glanced up at the sun—the fight had scarce lasted half an hour.
Now the gate gave way beneath them with a crash, and it felt as if the whole tower staggered. Olav ran to the other side and looked down to see how things were going. The yeomen had dashed forward and manned the breastwork, Ivar in the midst of them. The horsemen could only advance two-abreast. The blows of the yeomen’s maces and axes and the clash of swords rose above cries and the tramping of horses—for a while this might go well. More of the mounted troop, horse and man together, had gone down in the torrent; now the Swedes were sending footmen onto the bridge.
Sira Hallbjörn he saw on the top of the breastwork, slashing with his great two-handed sword;
the priest fought like a devil.
Olav threw away the fragments of his shield; there were only splinters left between the iron bands. He grasped Kinfetch in both hands and turned to where the ladder had been, but now it was gone; it hung on a jutting rock in the hollow sheet of ice over the torrent, and they were bringing up another. Behind him his men thrust down the enemies who were trying to mount the inside ladder to the roof—they ought to have drawn it up.
Now Ivar and his men sprang over the breastwork and advanced over the bridge. They cleared it in a moment—for that time. And the Swedes drew back across the fields, out of bowshot.
Olav lifted off his helmet to cool himself a moment. There was refreshment too in the stillness, with the roar of the torrent, which had been drowned by the fighting. And now he found it was not only sweat that had made his clothes stick to him, for his elk’s-hide hauberk was slit just over the body-plate, and bloody, but the scratch he had got was not a deep one, by the feeling.
A morion appeared in the opening—Sira Hallbjörn was climbing up the ladder.
“How many of you are alive? Go back now, you, and we fresh men will receive the next shock.”
“There is not much here to receive a shock with, Sira Hallbjörn.”
They saw men coming across the fields from the houses of Fors; they were carrying something.
“They will try to set fire to the barbican,” said Olav. “We must hold out as long as we can.”
“Ivar has placed combustibles within the breastwork,” said the priest.
“Then it will end in the bridge being burned. After that they can stand on either bank and sing staves against each other,” laughed Olav. “And then the issue will be better than we had looked for.”
In the fields in front the horns sounded the assembly. Olav stooped and picked up the yellow Olav banner, which had been torn down, and set it up again—it was now stained with blood.
“Now we must show them what we can do with the crossbow, Sira Hallbjörn!”